Monday, 21 December 2015

This is going to
be rambled, it’s going to be disjointed but it’s something I really do need to
say and share:

One of the most deadly symptoms of eating disorders – silence. There exists an
image of this poignant message emblazoned across a 5ft photograph of my face.
It serves as a powerful awareness message as part of the work of S.E.E.D
(Support and Education for Eating Disorders), a Lancashire eating disorder
charity that I used to volunteer for until late September 2015.

After attending S.E.E.D’s annual fashion
show fundraiser in October where this poster was everywhere (or so it felt to
me), wracked with guilt I began to feel that perhaps I had to break my own
silence. Take my own advice. I felt torturous because I know this poster is
ironic, because at the time that photograph was taken I was silently gripped in my
own battle with anorexia and I still am. It has still taken me a further three
months to write this down and feel able to share.

I first felt encouraged to first start to
write this all down after reading of a book, ‘Decoding Anorexia’ by Carrie
Arnold. Reading this book has helped me re-evaluate how I consider myself in
relation to my eating disorder and provided me with further insight. It has
also given me some of the knowledge and most of all the courage to open my
mouth again.

After having ‘recovered’ from my first serious episode of anorexia at 18, I spent
the following nine years of my life researching and personally studying eating disorders
(whilst simultaneously relapsing and ‘recovering’). I have read many an
academic thesis, psychology journals and countless books. I have learned the
theory of psychological interventions inside out, supported many sufferers in
groups and individually, I’ve written thorough essays, delivered presentations
and answered interviews about eating disorders. I had cared for my partner watching helplessly as this horrific illness claimed every aspect of her and then fought tirelessly to nurse her back to health. I have worked among and learned from the experts and attended
many a specialist training day. I have campaigned for awareness, fundraised for
support services, participated in psychology research studies, given DNA
samples. Most poignantly I have spent more than half of my life in some form of
therapy, trying to explore and understand my own relationship with myself and my
eating disorder. When it came to understanding anorexia, I had covered pretty
much covered all bases. Or so I thought.

Earlier this year I relapsed and I have been feeling entirely powerless to the
grasp that anorexia has on me. I had drummed up just about all the sheer
determination I could muster to push me to use all ‘intellectual’ resources. The
techniques and theory I know about treatment and recovery were considered,
ready to arm me for the onslaught. This however served only to mildly slow down
the speed of the cavalry but not the ferocity of what it is like to experience
your mind being taken over by anorexia. I have begun to feel quite hopeless,
continuing to push myself through private therapy desperately trying to be
proactive in my recovery, but increasingly experiencing that I am becoming
more and more disconnected from feeling anything other than anxiety. I have
been finding it practically impossible to meditate because my mind is forever
in hyper drive. I
had begun to panic that nothing could help me.Eventually I settled into what is my current state - apathy – because
thinking about it anymore causes me to see white noise.

This time around it has been the hardest
and most difficult to admit and be open about the fact that I am suffering with
anorexia (again). Despite all my hours of campaigning, raising awareness and telling my
own clients that there is no shame in having a mental illness, I still firmly
believed that I am to blame for my anorexia. This has kept me silent.

I have come to understand that I experience such levels of shame and
humiliation regarding my illness because of the way we view anorexia (in
general) as being a problem of sociocultural construct. We blame the media, we
blame fashion, photoshop, malfunctioning relationships, faulty parenting,
trauma, difficult life transitions, patriarchy, a culture fixated with
thinness, peer pressure, Barbie dolls … we blame many things. But it was only
on reading Decoding Anorexia that I realised that even I had failed to consider
that becoming anorexic may be rooted in human biology. The roots of mental
illness lie in our very genetic make up and physiological and psychological
predisposition. For some reason these facts are hardly ever taken into
consideration when it comes to eating disorders. Perhaps my lack of consideration for
this fact is more indicative of my anorexic mindset than a preference for popular
psychology.

I have been feeling that I am weak. That I
have anorexia because I have simply internalised these sociocultural ideals –
certainly this is many other peoples perspectives, layman and professional. I
have chastised myself for not being either a) "conscious" enough to connect to a
higher purpose or b) enough of a feminist to intellectualise my way out of
caring about these ideals. I have felt for years that perhaps I haven’t
committed myself enough to engaging with my therapy (despite dedicating many
hours or paying vast amounts of money for it) and that was the reason I haven’t
got better. I have on the whole felt like a huge failure for not being able to
overcome this, for not ‘choosing’ recovery. Because of many attitudes and
misunderstandings about eating disorders, it has been very difficult for me to
view myself as actually having an illness and not just that I’m being selfish,
lacking in emotional intelligence, weak, vain, shallow, stubborn or stupid
(usually all of the above).

‘Decoding Anorexia’, explored how biology
plays a huge factor in the onset of the illness. Reading this book I have come
to understand that actually there exists a very real, biological reason that I
have this illness and that it persists so ferociously. Through understanding
this I can finally be able to conclude that actually this may not be my fault
or even within my control! This is immeasurably liberating because I feel able
to accept that I’m unwell and explore what I may need to now do to recover
without the guilt of ‘it’s my fault’ feeding the problem (not feeding me). A fresh
perspective once again – momentarily I felt hope.

Then came the hard part; realisation. I
know obviously that recovering largely involves eating (no shit) but if it were
that simple for me to do I’d not have anorexia. I keep waiting for the light
bulb moment – and I don’t think it’s coming. Recently both my wedding ring and
engagement ring fell off my finger. At first I felt nothing and then it was excitement and
adrenalin that hit me before the sick to stomach guilt set in. Such is the
nature of this illness, the only thing that you can feel fleeting joy about is
getting thinner. Other than that it seems I can only identify two feelings –
anxiety and guilt and sometimes I don’t even know which is which. I had absolved in late October that I may as well take a break from talking therapy,
because actually I’m incapable of engaging now my anorexia has progressed to
this point. I find myself doing things that can only be described as ‘crazy’,
it’s almost like I am not myself when I’m doing it – I feel like I’m watching
myself, removed and powerless.

I understand now that it is anxiety that is the true driver here and my eating
disorder is the nasty byproduct I developed to try and cope with this anxiety
and then it took over. I feel so overwhelmed by everyday life because my brain
is on hyper alert all the time. Painfully over processing everything, holding
on to things that I needn’t, mercilessly self critical about every single
thing, eventually it all becomes too much and I shut down, neurologically. I
shrink my world and my body so that suddenly all I have to think about food and
weight. This only increases in intensity when undernourished because of the
confusion that comes with not eating – hence why it becomes progressively more
and more aggressive. It literally becomes unbearable to eat. I cannot think my
way out of it, it’s entrenched.

This doesn’t mean I’m resigning myself to
being ill, when you’re unwell you need medicine to help you to get better. The medicine you need for anorexia is food. The simple and
unavoidable solution is to eat. Which obviously we all know but I understand
now why I can’t do this myself because of the way my brain isn’t processing
correctly – it’s not a choice. I know it’s unavoidable and the only way to get
better is to eat and eat a lot. Keep eating until my body is at a healthy
weight and only then do I stand a strong chance of better cognitive functioning
and I can begin to do some proper therapeutic work to tackle the anxiety.

Physically I am in pain most if not all of the time. My teeth are ruined from
years of being this way but now because I am so low on reserves they cause me
agonizing pain and I’m too ashamed to go to a dentist. I am covered in bruises,
mostly from work but also because it takes so long for me to heal. My neck and
shoulders hurt from holding myself so tense all the time. My hips and knees
permanently ache rising to acute pain on days when I can't seem to override the
urge to walk (in the cold) for an hour (at least). My finger nails are
crumbling, my hair is now so thin that I can see my scalp when I brush it – I’m
in a mess physically. Mentally I’m just exhausted from having to battle through
every waking minute of my own head literally sabotaging me from the inside out.

Despite this I have to push myself to be functional, keep plastering a smile on
because otherwise I’d just stop completely. Holding down my job is the only
thing that makes me feel like I’m actually doing something worthwhile. It’s a
huge reassurance that I can at least still pay for myself and I have at least
some form of socially acceptable answer when someone asks me what I’ve been up
to. I haven't been open with my colleagues at work, nobody actually knows the truth of the situation (until now I guess) because I’m
frightened of being misunderstood, frightened of not being able to explain
myself, frightened of losing my job actually, even though I push myself
incredibly hard not to let my illness interfere with how I work. I try my
best to dismiss any comments about my size or just act as normally as possible
when presented with offers of food (which are terrifyingly frequent in a
supermarket).

I’m wholly terrified generally. I know
sooner or later I will have to eat properly and fully again, eat enough to
actually regain weight and I’d much rather do that at home than in hospital.
I’m at a point now where I really don’t have a lot of weight to play with
before I will be carted off to an inpatient unit whether I like it or not.

Yet I still can’t pick up a fork frequently
enough, I can’t stop compulsively walking, I can’t stop vomiting, calorie
counting, restricting, body checking etc. I am terrified and my brain keeps
telling me; I can’t stop yet because I’m not thin, it’s too soon to start eating
again, I don’t need help yet, I can do this on my own. My brain is telling me
lots of things. Anorexia doesn’t care that I actually used to like to eat, that
I know what foods I used to enjoy. Anorexia only cares that I am thin. Except
anorexia is not a conscious entity so it doesn’t know that I am ever thin.

Naturally I am frightened and confused. I
don’t actually know what to do. I think I probably need medication to help calm
my anxiety down, just turn the volume down so that my brain has a fighting
chance. I do not benefit from being told I just need to fight, try harder,
surrender etc. I KNOW all of these things and believe me if I could do them
then I would. This isn’t a case of me just being weak or ignorant, this is a
case of me being unwell, I do not choose to be this way (I cannot stress this
last point enough). These misconceptions
of what it is like to experience anorexia and the causes have left me feeling
very isolated, alone and misunderstood –these do not make for healthy recovery
circumstances or make it easy to be honest.

I WILL beat this – I have always had hope and I still do have. I know what I
want for my life – I can see it all there in front of me but right now I’m
stuck, really stuck … and so my first step in unsticking myself was to open my
mouth and remove the shroud that I feel hidden behind every day. I can’t live a
lie anymore – it’s exhausting. This illness is exhausting… and I just wanted
the people in my life to understand that I am not being ignorant when I don’t
reply to messages, when I decline social invitations, when I can’t seem to hold
a conversation etc. This is why I had to leave my job at Breathe Therapies,
this is why I am not continuing to pursue my therapeutic training at the moment
and it feels an enormous relief to admit that.

I need acceptance and I need understanding but more than that I need patience
and I need more help. So I’m breaking my silence yes to bring about
understanding, but more than anything to ask for some assistance. I can’t do
this on my own. I have a mental illness that is quite literally trying to kill
me. I can’t begin to express how utterly terrifying it is not to be able to
trust your own thoughts. I like to think of myself as a strong, intelligent
woman and to not feel like I have the upper hand in my own mind is really
paralyzing. So this is me admitting that I’ve relapsed and that I need people
to know because silence and shame is only going to delay a proper recovery more
so. It’s not personal that I haven’t told certain people – it’s been actually
hard enough for me to admit it to myself and I just haven’t
known how to begin talking … so I wrote this down and I’m sharing it now.